UFC middleweight Nursulton Ruziboev has his sights set on Bo Nickal after winning a tough fight against Dustin Stoltzfus at UFC Vegas 106 on Saturday night.
The only strange thing about the callout is that Nickal is coming off a loss at UFC Des Moines. Ruziboev understands this, but still wants to try his hand at the former NCAA D1 wrestler.
“I watched his fights before. He’s a great wrestler, he’s a legendary wrestler. I think that it’s a comfortable fight for me,” Ruziboev told reporters including Cageside Press through a translator at his post-fight scrum.
“It’s a fight that I coud win. I want to try myself against him. If he would have won they wouldn’t have given it to me. Because he lost I think that this fight could happen. I think that he would accept my challenge.”
Ruziboev (36-9-2) was a sizeable favorite against Stoltzfus, but you wouldn’t know from watching the fight. Many expected it to be a quick night for Ruziboev, but Stoltzfus proved to be much tougher than he expected.
In fact at one point in the fight Stoltzfus had him in a tough spot going for a guillotine choke. The submission was unsuccessful, but to the viewer it looked rather tight.
“After the first time he got me in the choke I realized that I had to move. I kept on moving around and I improve my position,” he said.
“I thought that I was going to be able to finish him in the fight. Once we got into the fight, I felt his punches, they were harder than I thought. I wasn’t able to finish him.”
Watch the entire post-fight scrum with Nursulton Ruziboev above.
